Lyn Gardner Interviews Samuel Barnett as Pride Heads to the Bridge Theatre
Published on 5 November 2026
When Pride, the gloriously uplifting musical based on the 2014 movie of the same name, transfers to the Bridge Theatre next week after a sell-out season at the NT, the cast will include the actor Samuel Barnett. Barnett will reprise his dizzyingly delightful performance as Jonathan, one of a group of gay and lesbian friends who during the 1984 miners’ strike created an unlikely alliance with the men and women of a striking Welsh pit village. But when Barnett was first rung by writer Stephen Beresford and asked him to play the role in a workshop of Pride, he said, "No," very firmly.
Barnett, who made his name in Alan Bennett’s The History Boys at the NT, playing Posner, who memorably declares, “I’m a Jew. I’m small. I’m a homosexual. And I live in Sheffield. I’m fucked" was appearing in the RSC production of Mark Ravenhill’s Ben and Imo at the Orange Tree. It was a hugely demanding show, and Barnett doubted he’d be able to give both his full attention.
Beresford persisted, saying that although the show had already been workshopped twice with other people in the role of Jonathan, he had always had Barnett in mind for the part. Again, Barnett said no, not least because he was well aware he is not a trained musical theatre performer, although he has sung in shows. Once heard, his rendition of Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered from The History Boys can never be forgotten.
“I was not a musical theatre actor. I just haven’t had the training (he trained at LAMDA on the school’s acting course), and though I’d auditioned for musicals and sometimes got quite far in the casting process, I never got the job because obviously they’d go with people with lots of musicals on their CVs.”
But when the Pride team made a third ask, his agent suggested that maybe he really should do it, and when Barnett read the script, he knew immediately that he would do the workshop, which was “basically a three-week audition for the role,” because “it was just so good and I could see I was so right for the role.’
Although he was well aware it would be a major challenge. “My instinct was going, ‘I really want this role; it is so right for me,' and another part was going, ‘I don’t know if you can do this; if I’ve got the chops for it.’ That imposter syndrome still hasn’t left me because I am working with people who are extraordinary, trained dancers and singers and actors and have been doing all three their entire careers. So, I’ve just had to get over myself and work really hard and get there in my own way. I sang and danced a lot as a child, but it hasn’t been like getting back on a bike; I’ve had to really train to do this.”
But the effort has paid off with plenty arguing that Barnett’s performance as Jonathan-- inspired by the real-life HIV-positive gay activist, **Jonathan Blake **-- guarantees him an Olivier nomination. Barnett, whose Jonathan disco dances the group into the Welsh miners' initially doubtful hearts and stops the show with the deeply affecting yet full-on razzle-dazzle number, You Might As Well Live, says that doing the show has been a glorious experience.
“I grew up in the 80s and 90s with such shame about being gay. It was hard; I’m from a small town, and nobody else was out, and it often felt difficult, and I often felt crushed by shame. But here I am playing a character who, even back in the 1980s when he was diagnosed with HIV-- one of the first people in the UK to be diagnosed-- he was living his life out and proud. If he had shame, he didn’t let it crush him. So, it has been weirdly healing for my inner child to be playing a role where every day I get to be this fiercely proud man who advocates for himself, the queer community and people living with AIDs.”
Another unlooked-for bonus has been the experience of being in a cast which includes so many gay people.
“I hadn’t realised how much I have code switched in theatre rehearsals, or on film and TV sets. Not to hide the fact I’m gay because I have never been in the closet. But to make sure that I fit in or don’t stand out or can be targeted in any way. I’ve realised a lot of it has been unconscious and then suddenly I’m in this room where the number of queer people is probably equal to the number of straight people and it has been really interesting watching myself drop the code switching and the mask and just being myself.”
He says he is proud and privileged to count the real Jonathan Blake, now aged 77, as a friend, has been to his house for lemon drizzle cake, and last week had the honour of presenting Blake with a lifetime achievement award at the Terrence Higgins Trust Positive Voices Awards for his long-time advocacy.
“He is such a glorious human being. He says that both the film and stage characters are versions of him, but not completely him, but he is particularly thrilled that this version of him gets to sing and tap dance.”
Pride is a show which is moving and joyous, but its short run at the NT demonstrated that it has a rare ability to bring people together in an almost enchanted way.
“I think it is a genuinely communal experience, and we live in times when people are yearning for connection, and that happens when people are together in the same room and there is music that goes straight to people’s hearts and guts. I’m stealing this from the writer Stephen Beresford, who stole it from a line a critic wrote about the movie Pride. "Prejudice cannot survive proximity." I think that’s brilliant, and it is so true. I’ve had friends and relatives who have come to see it who are skewed maybe more to the right, and they have come out weeping. It makes people connect with each other and breaks down barriers and makes us understand that underneath our differences we are all human beings.”
Pride The Musical plays at the Bridge Theatre from 12 November 2026 – 8 May 2027. Book your tickets today.
By Lyn Gardner
Lyn Gardner is an acclaimed theatre journalist and former critic with decades of experience covering British theatre, from off-West End and fringe theatre to major West End productions.